Recapturing this work of landscape artistry is intended to teach others about the intellectual and pragmatic challenges of restoring and preserving a garden of such historic significance. It is the hope that the Blue Garden serves as an inspiration to further this legacy while reinforcing stewardship values concerning our collective culture.

History

Among the many notable gardens created by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., and the Olmsted firm, the “Blue Garden,” designed for Arthur Curtiss and Harriet Parsons James, remains a unique expression of landscape art.

Restoration

With the late 20th-century resurgence of interest in historic landscapes, a new era of methodologies — for research, standards of restoration and rehabilitation, and devising sustainable futures for past landscape glories — has emerged.

The Garden

The Blue Garden today has been reinterpreted into a palette of lower maintenance blue and white flowering shrubs, perennials, annuals, and vines — all of which ensure that the garden’s unique ambiance will be sustained.